The Cat House

While I sit here in my hotel room in sunny Florida, watching a lightening storm in the distance off my balcony as I unwind from a busy day of work, my husband is probably up the block from our new apartment feeding the gaggle of homeless cats who, we have discovered, have made an abandoned home their own. My husband, an animal lover of course, knows that these cats need help, and apparently there hasn’t been much luck with local organizations helping to spay and adopt these animals out. My guess is that they have been there for a while, multiplying, telling their friends to come by. The cat house is taking over our block, and the dog is definitely not happy about it.

While I really do love all animals, I have to admit a bit of a rough past I’ve had with cats. I didn’t grow up with a pet any bigger than a hamster, but I was around cats and dogs often and typically leaned towards dogs who have a more approachable personality. I have 2 specific early memories of cats in which I was insured. One cat scratched my pinky toe when I was just a kid, and the other time, when I was 11, I was cat sitting for a family friend when I sliced my pinky finger opening a can of cat food. I still bare that scar.

So I don’t really love cats, but I do have an appreciation for all innocent life. I don’t know how these cats got here. I know they are not all from one family, and I know that they are reproducing. What I do know is something has to be done for the cats’ sake and for the sake of the neighborhood. Many of my neighbors have probably accepted the situation for what it is, but two activists just moved into the neighborhood, and we’re not the type to just sit back and let this happen.